NOT MAD, JUST DISAPPOINTED
Facebook, the Secret Service and the enduring wisdom of fathers
I don’t know Kerry O’Grady, but her father and my father were close friends from the time they were in high school. My dad’s tenure as a secret service agent and her dad’s as a DEA agent ran contemporaneously and spanned several decades and several presidents.
Over many years, many adventures, and many glasses of Johnnie Walker, they both said many things about the leaders under whom they served that would have been unfit for broadcast on the 6 o’clock news. But reading the reports of Special Agent O’Grady’s Facebook post about President Trump, it’s clear that, even if they might have agreed with her underlying sentiment, they both would have been disappointed and dismayed by its public and indelible expression.
MORE THAN WORDS
On a Sunday evening this past October, Special Agent Kerry O’Grady posted a FaceBook message that was critical of Donald Trump and endorsed Hillary Clinton. It was indistinguishable from millions of other posts critical of then-candidate Trump (and was tamer than most of them) but for one thing: as the Special Agent in Charge of the Secret Service’s Denver field office, O’Grady’s words took on an expanded meaning and did harm to the agency she represents and the nation she is sworn to protect.
As a public servant for nearly 23 years, I struggle not to violate the Hatch Act. So I keep quiet and skirt the median. To do otherwise can be a criminal offense for those in my position. Despite the fact that I am expected to take a bullet for both sides. But this world has changed and I have changed. And I would take jail time over a bullet or an endorsement for what I believe to be disaster to this country and the strong and amazing women and minorities who reside here. Hatch Act be damned. I am with Her.
— Special Agent Kerry O’Grady, on Facebook
The words of O’Grady’s message were personal and expressed a valid and defensible position shared by large numbers of Americans. But when a partisan message is delivered by an agent whose duty is to protect without regard to political or personal opinion, it erodes the nation’s trust in one of its most hallowed institutions.
Like President Obama’s use of the IRS to attack political enemies, a Secret Service Agent suggesting she would rather go to jail than take a bullet for a protectee makes us question things that should never be questioned in a healthy and functioning America: that non-political institutions will not be swayed by political opinions, that the ebbs and flows of political discourse will have no effect on the security of the office being protected, and that duty to country trumps party loyalty (pun only slightly intended).
A BRUTAL GRIND
Presidential campaigns are grueling on Secret Service Agents. Agents are charged with the unimaginably difficult task of ensuring the absolute security of protectees in a constantly changing labyrinth of venues, travel routes, rope-lines, appearances and parades. As the campaign proceeds, crowds grow bigger, the spotlight grows brighter and, in the case of last year’s election, tensions reach a fever pitch.
Unlike the rest of us who can turn away from campaign coverage when we’ve had enough, agents remain on perpetual alert knowing that perfection is their only option — the difference between being right 100% of the time and 99% of the time is world-altering disaster.
And agents are not robots. They are smart, engaged, passionate patriots with opinions, ideas and emotions that are stoked by the politics they are witnessing. Add to that the stress of being away from home and family for weeks or months and it’s a wonder that any of the Agents make it through the gauntlet with their sanity intact. It was in this cauldron that Special Agent O’Grady’s Facebook post was brewed.
Among other “October surprises”, the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign saw the release of Donald Trump’s “locker room” conversation with fawning sycophant Billy Bush. With his casual humblebrag about ample opportunities for sexual assault playing on every news network, Trump’s campaign schedule indicates he made a stop in Colorado during the last weekend in October — a visit during which O’Grady’s office was probably responsible for his security. Trump being Trump, it’s entirely possible that he said something to O’Grady or one of her colleagues during that trip that may have caused already-strained emotions to snap.
Somewhere in that mix, Special Agent O’Grady became disgusted enough with Donald Trump that she took to Facebook to broadcast her opinion. Exhausted, frustrated, angry, and perhaps relieved at the likelihood of never having to deal with him again — recall that, on the eve of the election, the “scientific consensus” among pundits and self-styled intellectuals was that the possibility of a President Trump was remote — O’Grady’s lapse of judgement is imminently understandable. But for a person in O’Grady’s position, understandable is not the same as excusable.
A MOMENT ON THE LIPS
Social media is a scourge to the thoughtful but occasionally impulsive. Comments that, a generation ago, would have been vented in the corner of a barroom or across a kitchen table and then quickly forgotten are today registered worldwide with the stroke of a button to be permanently catalogued and linked to their author in an ever-expanding database of fleeting thought.
The genius and the curse of social media is that the experience creates the illusion of a private conversation, encouraging candid and unguarded expression. But the platform is the exact opposite of where most of us would, upon reflection, choose to display our intimate thoughts: permanent, global and stripped of context; front page exposure for back-room conversations.
In it’s most admirable form, social media encourage us to be more thoughtful and reserved about the opinions and ideas we express. But more frequently and realistically, they become a bullhorn broadcasting our raw and unfiltered emotions and preserving them for future, detached analysis. Most of us who grew up before social media are happy and grateful that the impetuous decisions of our more carefree years are able to fade into romanticized lore without a digital record to keep them alive. Kids (and kids at heart) today don’t have that luxury.
As we navigate this new frontier, we are in need of leaders to show us how to conduct ourselves in the ever-widening public sphere. Our President does us no favors in that regard, indulging his own petulant narcissism in tweet after obnoxious tweet. But the fact that the President is incapable of holding his tongue (cyber or otherwise) makes that skill more precious and admirable among others in public life. And it makes outbursts like O’Grady’s that much more disheartening.
The truth is we need people like Kerry O’Grady — strong, accomplished, intelligent, brave women who serve as role models and show us all that there are still government agents and agencies worthy of our respect. Her lapse in judgement diminished that respect a bit, but we shouldn’t let it fully drain a reservoir built up during a lifetime of dedicated service.
IT’S GONNA BE OKAY
Our leaders are not saints. On the contrary, our nation’s history is pockmarked with presidents, vice presidents and presidential family members who are the moral inferiors of those charged with their protection. Which makes Secret Service Agents’ dedication all the more impressive. But it also highlights the absolute necessity for those agents to ignore the president’s personal or political failings in the exercise of their duties.
I have no doubt that Special Agent O’Grady is fully committed to the discharge of her duties and I believe her when she says that she is devoted to mission and country. She is made of the precious mettle that her lineage affords. But on that Sunday in October her judgement failed her.
Kerry’s father and mine were cut from the same cloth and because they were I am confident that if either of them was alive today they would take her aside, buy her a drink, give her a hug and tell her: you screwed up, but it’s going to be okay. Donald Trump is neither the first nor the last president to inspire fits of uncontainable rage. But next time the urge strikes you, maybe try to pick a medium that’s a little less permanent. Like, you know, talking.
